Friday, February 5, 2010

Headlines - Friday

 
 
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"In some respects, it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed." Pope Benny the Rat, on Britain's proposed gay equal rights law Link  

That sounds funny coming from a man who heads an organization of young boy rapists.  
  
And how does giving someone equality violate the natural law of equality?

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Gene Lyons - The deficit blame game

Millions of voters believe the GOP line about Obama's runaway spending. It's up to him to set the record straight

If President Obama's recent face-to-face meeting with congressional Republicans had been a prizefight, they'd have stopped it: Obama by TKO. It was such a mismatch that Fox News, unofficial network of the GOP, basically conceded defeat by cutting away 20 minutes before it ended. Other networks showed it all.

Republicans appeared to make the elementary mistake of believing their own ... um, propaganda. Believe it or not, Obama's use of Teleprompters has convinced GOP stalwarts that he's kind of thick. I get frequent e-mails to that effect from people who marveled at the wit and wisdom of George W. Bush.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/02/03/obama_gop/print.html

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"Look what's going on in France, where that psychological abuse -- those words spoken that  
aren't politically correct and accepted in that country will be allowed. They'll be deemed illegal.  
Now some who want us to turn into a country like that scare the heck out of me. And unfortunately some of those people are leading our country today."
  Sarah Palin, to Glenn Beck, saying she don't need no word police, 
Link  

"Our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm's recent sick and offensive tactic." Sarah Palin, word policewoman, calling for Rahm to be fired Link 

Sarah, you have the consistency of warm baby shit. 
You told Glenn Beck that the word police scare you - and then you become one?

Do you have any idea what you stand for?  

"Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of  
people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks.  
Rahm Emanuel is calling Obama's number one supporters f'ing retards. So now there's  
going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit..." 
the vulgar Pigboy, trying to be offensive and succeeding 
Link  

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Republicans have handed Democrats a gift. Only one week after the State of the Union when Obama again implored Republicans to work with him. This is a gift.

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children getting vaccinated

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It should be the norm, not the exception.

Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

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The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama's question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn't the only angry Democrat in the room.

We don't elect these bleepers to a social club and it's sad that all but a handful of Dems are there only to play the game. We need more guys like Franken who realize they aren't there to make friends but to get something done.

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And the Great Timing Award goes to...
..Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, who earlier this week, in his redundantly named "Roadmap Plan" revived George Bush's brilliant idea of privatizing Social Security:
This proposal addresses the shortcomings of the current system and strengthens the retirement safety net by providing workers with the voluntary option of investing a portion of their FICA payroll taxes into personal savings accounts. Due to the higher rate of return received by investments in secure funds consisting of equities and bonds, these accounts would allow workers to build a significant nest egg for retirement that far exceeds what the current program can provide. Each account will be the property of the individual, and fully inheritable, which will allow workers to pass on any remaining balances in their accounts to their descendants.

Yesterday the Dow-Jones Industrial Average closed down 268.37 points. Much of the gains of recent months have been wiped out.

And this isn't a one-day blip, either. The world economy is once again teetering.
Latvia has 23% unemployment. Greece may need a bailout.. Portugal has debt concerns. Spain is in hock up to its eyeballs too.

So of course, with markets reeling all over the world, it's a perfect time to tell Americans that they should trust their retirement to these markets.
 
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It seems that they aren't going to teach much about American history in North Carolina anymore:
He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth.
Hey, I've got an even better idea! Why don't the high schools in Germany and Japan just skip over that inconvenient period between 1930 and 1945?

This isn't about "refocusing the curriculum". This is about blotting out a time in American history that is both embarrassing to some parts of the political spectrum and about setting the stage for the stripping of civil rights. If you don't teach children in school about the founding of this country and about the entire period of slavery, if you start right in after the end of Reconstruction, then you can portray the entire civil rights struggle as little more than a fight over political power between special interest groups. If you don't teach children about the American Revolution, then the rights and liberties that are contained in the Constitution lose much of their meaning.

This is about breeding a dumber generation of Sheeple (a task that that the Texas State Board of Education has long taken the lead).
 
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How embarrassing is this? .....

Rep. Mike Noel, the Legislature's chief climate-change skeptic, declared Thursday that global warming is a conspiracy to control world population.

The House Natural Resources Committee then approved a resolution that expresses the Utah Legislature's belief that "climate alarmists' carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for the current downturn in global temperatures."

The resolution, sent to the House on a 10-1 vote, would urge the Environmental Protection Agency to drop plans to regulate the pollution blamed for climate change "until a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated." http://www.sltrib.com/utahpolitics/ci_14337716 

And speaking of embarrassing politicians from Utah...
 
Oral Snatch blasts 'liberal groups' for 'misconstruing' his position on DADT: "I certainly do not support repeal." 

zzhatch

Yesterday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) surprised many by suggesting that he was open to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT). Explaining that he saw both sides of the issue, Hatch told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell that he "believe[d] there are very outstanding, patriotic gay people who serve in the military. … And they shouldn't have to lie about being gay." When Mitchell asked whether he would vote for repeal, Hatch left the door open, saying, "Well I don't know about that, I'd have to look at it." His comments were quickly picked up by liberal and pro-gay rights blogs, leading some to speculate that this "significant development" meant there was more support for repealing DADT in the Senate than previously thought. But today, Hatch made clear that he does not support repeal and attacked "liberal groups" for "misconstruing" his position:

"It's deeply regrettable that liberal groups are misconstruing my position on 'don't ask, don't tell' for activist purposes. I certainly do not support repealing this policy," Hatch's statement on Thursday said. [...]

"What I said was that I want to see Adm. Mullen's report. This is a controversial issue with inflamed passions on both sides," Hatch said.

"Over the years, the views of the military officers and experts, whom I respect, have said that repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' would make life for our troops more difficult — especially as our armed forces wage a global war on terrorism," Hatch said.

(HT: FDL)

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GOP deficit hawks - not so much, it seems
 
Well, well, well. Republicans' concern about the deficit only goes so far, it seems. They're just fine with the ways that the Chimperor and his GOP predecessors (Chimperor, Sr. and St. Ronnie) ran up the deficit:
A new Rasmussen poll supplies a very interesting data point in the ongoing debate about the budget deficit: As it turns out, Republican voters would prefer having a deficit if it meant they can get more tax cuts, instead of raising taxes in order to balance the budget.
So the Republicans are only concerned about the Federal budget deficit when they are not in power.

Big surprise, eh?
 
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Snowpocalypse ll

First they predicted 12-20 inches, and we said nothing. Then… other predictions were made… and now it's 18-24 inches with a special Bonus Prize of "you will die, -ish" for a small band hovering over Washington, DC, the mutilated-diamond-shaped federal office park where man's greatest dreams come to be filibustered. Clutch your loved ones! (Because after a few days, you'll need to eat them.) AccuWeather

John Cole: "I think a lot of the problems in this country can be directly traced to the way the beltway pundit class reacts to... snow."

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Mitch McConnell wants you to know that under US law, foreign companies can not make campaign contributions here... except to him, evidently.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling, Sen. McConnell (R-KY - heh) has been quick to denounce a bid by Democrats to stop foreign corporations from pouring money into U.S. elections, claiming current law already bars such spending. As we've reported before, it's not nearly as simple as that -- but McConnell should know: The GOP Senate leader has raked in campaign cash from a subsidiary of a major foreign defense contractor that's currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery…

McConnell's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Of course it didn't!

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To raise money for charity, a group called Canstruction creates sculptures out of food cans. The latest gallery came to New York.

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The Barbarians are past the gate and are inside the house. Over at the Lake.

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Revenge is sweet.

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Paging Jimmy Jeff to the soiled and discolored courtesy phone, please:

Newly single Bush brain Karl Rove was overheard yesterday telling his Fox makeup artist that he was going on his first post-divorce date—with someone who used to work under him at the White House. Who? Well, we don't know.

Such a ladies' man.

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General James T. Conway
Commandant of the Marine Corps

Dear
Gen. Conway,

It's a shame your opposition to repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," is resulting in your name becoming a synonym for "insecure bigoted neanderthal." Folks just don't understand the difficulties the repeal would cause the Corps.

The battle to remain heterosexually pure is tough enough for the average guy; it must be extremely difficult in the hyper-masculine culture of the Marine Corps'. All those hard bodies doing drills, running maneuvers, and showering together. It's a testament to each Marine's faith in God that they aren't constantly putting their little howitzers in each others mouths right there on the parade ground.

I'm afraid DADT repeal will change all that. In an organization as large as the Corps, it'll result in at least a couple of Marines publicly proclaiming themselves to be committed to homosexualism.

And that's where the trouble starts, because every other Marine who ever wrestled naked with one of these self-admitted homosexualists will begin to question their own commitment to the heterosexual lifestyle.

I can almost hear their minds at work: "Hey, I oiled that guys cannon at least 137 times late at night in the barracks...am I really straight?" or "He might have been the guy on the other side of the gap in the latrine wall...am I a homosexualist too?"

I'm not just guessing here. We've seen it all before after the Gomer Pile exposure. It sent Sgt Carter into a tailspin. Last I heard he lives on a llama ranch with some guy named Enrique and a cat. Yes, a cat.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

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Does this include teabaggers?

If you are a terrorist or are plotting the overthrow is the U.S. government, a new South Carolina law requires that your pay a $5 fee and register your group with the state. From the bill:

SECTION 23-29-10. Short title.

This chapter may be cited as the "Subversive Activities Registration Act."

SECTION 23-29-20. Definitions.

For the purposes of this chapter the following words, phrases and terms are defined as follows:

(1) "Subversive organization" means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means;

Sure sounds like the Tea Party to me!

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winter driving

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Exchange between Chris Wallace - Fox News (sic) and Don Imus: 

WALLACE: We're going to be down in Nashville with her at the National Tea Party Convention, and I'm excited. First of all, I'm excited to finally meet and interview Sarah Palin. We've been chasing her like Captain Ahab and the great white whale for the last year and a half. [...]

IMUS: When you interview her, will she be sitting on your lap? (LAUGHTER)

WALLACE: One can only hope. (LAUGHTER)

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